Thomas Earl Petty was an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He was the leader and frontman of the rock bands Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Mudcrutch and a member of the late 1980s supergroup the Traveling Wilburys. He was also a successful solo artist.
Benjamin Montmorency "Benmont" Tench III is an American musician and singer, and a founding member of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were an American rock band formed in Gainesville, Florida, in 1976. The band originally comprised lead singer and rhythm guitarist Tom Petty, lead guitarist Mike Campbell, keyboardist Benmont Tench, drummer Stan Lynch and bassist Ron Blair. In 1982, Blair, weary of the touring lifestyle, departed the band. His replacement, Howie Epstein, remained with the band for the next two decades. In 1991, Scott Thurston joined the band as a multi-instrumentalist, primarily on rhythm guitar and secondary keyboard. In 1994, Steve Ferrone replaced Lynch on drums. Blair returned to the Heartbreakers in 2002, the year before Epstein's death. The band had a long string of hit singles, including "Breakdown", "American Girl", "Refugee" (1979), "The Waiting" (1981), "Learning to Fly" (1991), and "Mary Jane's Last Dance" (1993), among many others, that stretched over several decades of work.
Michael Wayne Campbell is an American guitarist and vocalist. He was a member of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and co-wrote many of the band's hits with Petty, including "Refugee", "Here Comes My Girl", "You Got Lucky", and "Runnin' Down a Dream". Outside of The Heartbreakers, he has worked as a session guitarist and songwriter with a number of other acts, including composing and playing on the Don Henley hits "The Boys of Summer" & "The Heart of the Matter" as well as working on most of Stevie Nicks's solo albums. Campbell, along with Neil Finn, joined Fleetwood Mac to replace lead guitarist Lindsey Buckingham on their world tour in 2018–2019. After the end of that tour, he has been involved in his own band, the Dirty Knobs. As of 2024, the Dirty Knobs have released three albums.
Echo is the tenth studio album by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Released in April 1999, the album reached number 10 on the Billboard 200 aided by singles "Free Girl Now", "Swingin'" and "Room at the Top", which hit numbers 5, 17 and 19 respectively on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Tracks in 1999. The album was the band's last collaboration with producer Rick Rubin, and was also the last to feature contributions from longtime bassist/vocalist Howie Epstein, who died of a heroin overdose in 2003. Despite still being a member of the band, Epstein is missing from the album's cover photo because he failed to show up for the photo shoot, and Petty ordered it to commence without him. It also marks the first to feature longtime touring member Scott Thurston, as well as the first to credit drummer Steve Ferrone as an official member. Echo was certified Gold by the RIAA in July 1999, only three months after it was released. Echo is the only Heartbreakers' album to feature a lead vocal from another member of the band, namely lead guitarist Mike Campbell on "I Don't Wanna Fight".
Hard Promises is the fourth studio album by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers released on May 5, 1981, on Backstreet Records.
Southern Accents is the sixth studio album by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, released on March 26, 1985, through MCA Records. The album's lead single, "Don't Come Around Here No More", co-written by Dave Stewart of Eurythmics, peaked at number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song "Southern Accents" was later covered by Johnny Cash for his Unchained album in 1996.
Playback is a box set compilation by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, released in 1995. It contains popular album tracks, B-sides, previously unreleased outtakes, and early songs by Petty's previous band Mudcrutch.
Ronald Edward Blair is an American musician notable for being the bassist for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. He was originally the band's bassist from 1976 to 1981. In 2002, he returned to the group after a 20-year hiatus, replacing his own replacement, the late Howie Epstein.
Tom Leadon was an American musician. He was one of the founding members of Tom Petty's original band, Mudcrutch, and remained its guitarist following its revival in 2007. He was the brother of Bernie Leadon, the former banjoist and guitarist of the Eagles.
Anthology: Through the Years is a double compilation album featuring the best of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. It contains a new song, "Surrender," written by Petty in 1976 and recorded during sessions for the band's first album but left off the record, recorded again in 1979 but left off "Damn The Torpedoes," and finally recorded again in 2000 for this release. "Surrender" is also the last studio recording of Howie Epstein before his death in 2003. The 1976 version of the song was included on the 2018 box set An American Treasure.
"Refugee" is a song recorded by American rock band Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. It was released in January 1980 as the second single from their album Damn the Torpedoes, and peaking at No. 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. The song is in compound AABA form.
"A Woman in Love (It's Not Me)" is a song recorded by American rock band Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. It was released in June 1981 as the second single from their album Hard Promises. It peaked at number 79 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart.
"You Got Lucky" is the first single from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' album Long After Dark. The song peaked at #20 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on the Billboard Top Tracks chart, where it stayed for three weeks at the end of 1982. Somewhat unusually for a Petty song, guitars give up the spotlight to allow synths to carry the song's main structure.
Mudcrutch is the first studio album by American rock band Mudcrutch, released on April 29, 2008. The album was recorded during a two-week period in August 2007. Mudcrutch was originally formed in 1970. The band recorded several demos and singles but never released a record. Mudcrutch was disbanded by the record company in 1975 and did not play together again until recording this album 32 years later. After the initial break-up, band members Tom Petty, Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench went on to form Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
"Scare Easy" is a song written and sung by Tom Petty. It featured on the debut album by rock band Mudcrutch featuring Petty and Mike Campbell. The song was used in a 2008 commercial for My Name Is Earl. The song peaked at #4 on the Billboard chart.
"I Should Have Known It" is a song by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers from their 2010 album Mojo. It was included on Petty's 2019 posthumous greatest hits album The Best of Everything. The song has been described as a great rocker with a riff in Led Zeppelin's style.
Mudcrutch 2 is the second and final studio album by American rock band Mudcrutch, released on May 20, 2016 and was the last recorded studio material by Tom Petty before his death in 2017. The album entered the U.S. Billboard 200 chart at No. 10, selling about 33,000 copies in its first week.
An American Treasure is a 2018 compilation album and box set of Tom Petty, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Mudcrutch released by Reprise Records on September 28, 2018. The set includes several rare and unreleased songs alongside more obscure album tracks that showcase Petty's songwriting. The majority of the content is Heartbreakers material but there are also several solo songs and some recordings by Mudcrutch. Critical reception has been positive.
The Best of Everything is a 2019 greatest hits album with recordings made by Tom Petty, with his backing band The Heartbreakers, as a solo artist, and with Mudcrutch. It was released on March 1.
